


Mops And Monsters

by theterribletyrian



Category: Guild Wars
Genre: Asura (Guild Wars), College of Synergetics, Other, Rata Sum, Sylvari, Villains, Wintersday (Guild Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 09:58:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5493053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theterribletyrian/pseuds/theterribletyrian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On Wintersday Eve, Isra is hard at work cleaning the floors of the College of Synergetics in Rata Sum; the only job in which she is trusted not to completely mess everything up.  Unbeknownst to her, she has recently come to the attention of a brilliant, ambitious young sylvari named Ceara.  As a direct result of the events of this night, the two become locked on a tragic collision course, fated to make direct contact for the first time in the very near future ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mops And Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> * TIMELINE: This scene occurs quite far back in the history of the Living World. Ceara is, as yet, merely a Synergetics student, immersed in her studies of the Eternal Alchemy. Still, she is well on her way to becoming the arch-villain Scarlet Briar.  
> 
> * CONTEXT: It may not make a great deal of sense to people outside of my guild, but this is the true beginning of Isra's complicated personal arc, which will eventually explain many very odd things about her character in the 'present' time.  
> 
> * THANKS: To Nox from my awesome RP guild [Mist] (The Mistwatch Initiative), for providing the writing challenge prompt ("the most wonderful time") that led to this piece!  
> 

****_Splat_.

Wintersday, a holiday that for months had seemed like it would never arrive, was finally here.

In Rata Sum, the festivities were muted. Wintersday was mostly a human thing, but over the past few years, the asura -- along with the Norn, sylvari, and charr -- had come to embrace it to some degree. Strings of tinsel and star-shaped lights draped several municipal buildings. Elsewhere in the floating city, tinkling bells, giggling progeny, and the clanking of golems could be heard in almost equal measure. It was humid and warm, here -- entirely the wrong season for snow, not that the jungle got any of that anyway -- but that didn't stop the majority of the populace from imbibing far stronger spirits than normal, and giving gifts to one another.

Isra hadn't received any gifts. She hadn't expected to, either. Wintersday was for those whose social status permitted them to have friends, or at least respectful contemporaries, and holiday or no holiday, hers allowed for neither. Her fellow asura may have been surprised to discover that this lack of companionship didn't bother her, most of the time.

But ... it was Wintersday, and she wasn't dressed to the nines, getting ready to gate to Divinity's Reach along with everyone else. No, she was clad in a pair of shabby brown overalls, mopping floors at the College of Synergetics. Just like she did every other night of the year. Giftless. Friendless. Alone.

And, for the first time, bitter about it all.

 _Splat, swish_.

* * *

She pushed the mop in methodical, even strokes across the patterned tiles, head down, brooding. Her normally placid face was drawn into a frown, amber eyes as dark as her thoughts. The corridor was deserted, all of the students having gathered in the main lecture hall for the headmaster's end of term address. Their impatient chattering swelled as she drew near, a wave of murmurs spiked with bursts of excitement and laughter. Light spilled out from the cavernous room in an angular swatch of gold, inordinately bright against the gloom of the unlit foyer. A beacon of joy in a world full of shadows.

Isra stopped, staring at it. Her hand moved slowly, the handle of the mop making a soft _thunk_ as it came to rest against the wall. Then she let it go. As if hypnotised, she walked toward the light, stopping just shy of the threshold, and peered in.

A tubby, silvery-blue golem appeared in the southern entrance of the crowded hexagonal hall, twenty or so metres to her left. It hesitated, its owner apparently assessing the best route to their destination. Then it began to waddle laboriously up the left aisle, bumping into several students as it went. A tinny voice issued at intervals from its forward-facing speaker. "Excus- I'm sorry, I need to get through ... EXCUSE ME!" Leaving a trail of indignant mutters and exclamations of pain in its wake, it finally broke free of the crush and climbed the short flight of stairs to the podium.

"ATTENTION, STUDENTS!" Everyone in the room clapped their hands to their ears, wincing at the distorted shriek. The head of the golem popped open and slid back in one smooth motion. Omadd, framed in its metallic confines, looked irritated. He reached down and tweaked a few dials on the golem's chest. "Test?" he ventured, and was greeted with sighs of relief.

He cleared his throat and sat back, leaving the golem open. "I'll be brief, because I can see that your attention spans are about as short as I am." A few students giggled. He ignored them. "Synergetics comprises the brightest and most open-minded student body of all the colleges. We also happen to be the most well-behaved, though that seems to be a coincidence." Scattered chuckles greeted this aside.

"We have," he went on, "a GOOD REPUTATION, thus far unsullied by any untoward instances of inappropriate behaviour, even during festivals. That means that you are all expected to uphold the most exacting standards of conduct whilst celebrating this holiday, whether here or in Divinity's Reach! Or elsewhere," he added severely, spotting a few relieved winks and nudges near the front of the crowd.

"We here at the College wish you all a good Wintersday! You've all worked very hard, and deserve a break to flaunt your genius to the world at large. Congratulations on making it through an exacting, rewarding, and thoroughly brilliant year!" Cheers rose as scores of hats -- and the odd shoe -- flew into the air, an exuberant and somewhat dangerous explosion of merriment that rained back down to the accompaniment of several grunts and yelps.

"And DO NOT forget about your final term assignments, or you can kiss graduation goodbye!" Omadd hollered as an afterthought, voice barely audible over the growing din. "DISMISSED!"

* * *

With no more warning than that, Isra was abruptly surrounded by a noisy, jostling mass of students as they surged out of the hall. Her bare left foot fell prey to a clunky snow boot, seconds after a bulging book bag shoved her shoulder, propelling her out of the doorway. She hissed in pain and threw an arm out to steady herself against the wall, buffeted by countless bodies.

The clattering echoes of hundreds of feet dwindled away, leaving the young asura alone in a vast, echoing wash of light. Then that clicked off, too. Sometimes it felt like her whole life was spent in dark, shadowy corners, unnoticed by all who passed. Just cleaning things, and keeping to herself. Which wasn't, she reflected, all that bad a thing, but at other times ...

She turned and stared wistfully back down the corridor. Somewhere out there, where everyone else had gone, was a whole world she'd never seen. Cities and towns, mountains and valleys. Deserts! Rata Sum backed onto jungle and ocean and was always damp, humid, or downright wet. She'd heard about arid lands, but couldn't even begin to fathom them. Air that was _dry_? She'd believe it when she saw it. Which, at this rate, would be never. Gating was far too expensive a mode of travel for someone who earned as little as she did.

Eyes adjusting easily to the gloom, Isra limped back to the abandoned mop and bucket. She dunked the mop in the hot, sudsy water, but left it where it was. By the Alchemy, she was _tired_. She stretched up with a gigantic yawn, one hand knuckling the stiffness in her lower back. One would think there'd be less to clean when nobody was around, but the head of the janitorial krewe seemed bizarrely determined to work them twice as hard while the College was deserted.

 _Not much of a problem for my co-workers_ , she thought wryly. A magneto-golem -- one of the newer CK420 models, equipped with its own thaumahydroxinator and a clever little high-pressure hose -- hummed in the distance, briefly visible as it zipped through the intersection between its corridor and hers.

"Hey!" she yelled, making it pause. "Come do my area after you finish yours, since you're so damn good at it!" The golem responded with an extremely rude noise and flipped its hose at her. "All gears and no engine," she muttered to herself as it sped off, knowing it wasn't true. Those things could run off a single charge for _days_. She, however, was a meatsack who needed to rest from time to time. And eat.

She sat with a groan, slouching against the cool, metallic wall, and dug into the main pocket of her overalls. Dinner was a small potato pie, its pitiful handful of calories a cold, greasy mess in a stained serviette. She nibbled at it, taking tiny, careful bites despite the growling of her stomach. Her work wouldn't be done for another three hours, and the shelves of her larder were nearly bare. She'd have to barter some of her seedlings for coin again. At that thought, her chewing slowed, then stopped. Her plants were the only things that had ever brought her joy, yet time after time, she found herself forced to sell them off, just to eat. Just to feed a failure.

"What is the _point_ of it all?" she ventured out loud, half to herself and half to the pie in her hand. "I'm never going to get where I want to go, so I guess I might as well just ... accept that I'm a lost cause, the only dumb asura in the world, and get on with it. Right?" The pie didn't answer.

"Only ..." Her voice trailed off longingly. "I wish someone would see me as valuable, for once. I think I could bear anything, if I just had that. And perhaps some experiences to write home about that _don't_ involve getting pelted with rotten fruit, or being banned from labs because I'm a klutz, or ... or failing in some other way."

She stared at the squishy, unappetising mess she held, then shook her head, getting to her feet. Talking to pies? Her life really _had_ hit a new low. She popped the last bite into her mouth, and gulped it down with defiant relish. Then, without really thinking about it, she brushed the crumbs from her overalls into one cupped hand and licked them off, too. Being wasteful was, she'd been told, almost as bad as being _her_ , but she didn't have to be both.

Grabbing the mop and nudging the bucket with her foot, she worked her way steadily down the corridor, then turned into Lecture Hall K.

 _Swish, swish, splat_.

* * *

Moments after Isra disappeared from sight, a door swung open. As the faint creak of its movement died away, a slender form stepped out, sinewy limbs a pale greyish-green wherever it encountered stray beams of moonlight. The odd silhouette thus presented to the empty corridor paused for a moment, then resolved into a young sylvari girl, her orange-tipped hair crowned with two large red roses, one on either side of her head. The petals spread gently, lending a deceptive grace to her profile.

There was, however, no gentleness in her face as she turned, eyes fixed on the doorway through which the faint sounds of mopping could be heard. Only calculation, and a shadow of the monster she would eventually become.

"Value, hmm?" She spoke quietly, but her voice was sharp, devoid of music, and jarring in the silence. "I can give you that. I can give you the world, little asura, but I want something from you in return. I want that brain that nobody seems to value around here, not even you. And if you give it to me ... I'll make of it something utterly unique, something the world has never before seen, or even imagined."

An unpleasant smile crept across her face as she spoke again, a harsh, intent whisper that followed her back into the darkened lab. "I'll show you snow and sand, and all the things you've been missing. I'll show you the most wonderful time, my tiny friend. But it will cost you _everything_." Her maniacal cackle abruptly cut off as the door swung to behind her.

Silence fell again, broken only by a distant _splat_.

* * *

Affixed to the door through which the sylvari had vanished was a small brass nameplate, at first glance no different to those identifying every other lab in the student wing. In bold, scrawled letters, its owner had etched her name, a name she would one day leave behind.

Behind the door, seated once again at her desk, Ceara flipped her notebook open to a fresh spread. Her brow furrowed in concentration as she began to sketch some preliminary designs. She drew with a heavy hand, the lines strong and uncompromising.

The two-part blueprint that emerged after several hours was chaotic, surrounded on all sides by countless scribbled notes. A great many of them were crossed out and rewritten. Crudely rendered, a small, childlike form hung awkwardly, wires suspending it within a vertical, circular frame. On closer inspection, one might have thought the wires didn't so much hold the body up as pierce it in multiple locations, like a perforated bead threaded on multiple chains.

On the opposite page, a sculpted cylinder hinged open, revealing a tangled explosion of ink within its shaft. Atop it, dark strokes delineated a wide, vaguely conical shape that came to a subtle point, and between the two a perfect circle hovered, touching nothing around it. Made bizarre only because of its connection to the other drawing, the device would no doubt have seemed familiar to a casual observer.

It was hard to tell for sure, but it could have been a lamp.

 


End file.
